A day after Haryana Police arrested a 35-year-old trader, whose relatives had claimed that he was burnt alive by three unidentified men after being robbed near Bhatla village in Hisar district’s Hansi, the trader on Saturday confessed that the burnt body was of his friend Ramlu.
Hansi superintendent of police (SP) Lokender Singh said the accused, Ram Mehar of Datta village, who runs a factory in Hisar’s Barwala town, was arrested from Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur and produced before a local court which sent him in seven-day police remand.
The SP said that the trader had confessed to burning down his car and stuffing his friend’s burnt body inside it. The friend was identified as Ramlu of the same village.
According to police, the trader had first strangulated Ramlu and then set the body afire.
“The motive was to claim ₹1.5 crore from insurance companies so that he could repay his debt,” the SP said, adding that the trader had suffered huge losses in the lockdown.